The Beginning Of The End
by callousfinch
Summary: It's time for the world... to end. (Lol blatant ripoff of the Last Jedi, get outta here, you no good nub)
1. The Beginning

Mark could see nothing. His world was black. But he could _hear_. Far away, in the distance, he heard his family's voices. His father, brother, and mother. He couldn't understand what they were saying... it was incoherent... but he didn't _need_ to understand their words to know that they were afraid... and in pain...

He began to run in a desperate attempt to reach them. But he could never get closer. And he still couldn't see.

Then there was a blinding light... and he woke up in his bed. The ceiling fan rotated around in circles. The smell of sizzling bacon wafted in. The chirping of birds was in his ears.

It had been a dream. He shuddered. Another dream!

He yawned and stretched his stiff muscles before climbing out of bed and going downstairs.

His brother Marvin was in the kitchen, cooking. His imposing six-foot height practically took up the entire room. Mark sat at the table, rubbing his eyes. Marvin plonked a plate down in front of him. "I heard you scream," he commented. Mark blinked up at his brother; "You did?"

Marvin nodded. His features were more defined than Mark's. He had sandy blonde hair and sideburns. "What happened? You get another cramp?"

"No. I just had a dream," Mark replied, tearing into his food, wolfing it down in hungry gulps. Marvin grunted obstinately.

Mark swallowed a mouthful and said, "I've been having similar dreams night after night for the past week."

"Oh?" Marvin said, back to cooking.

"Yeah. It's weird."

"Maybe you got some kind of condition."

"Well gee. I hope not."

"Yeah, me too."

Mark devoured the rest of his food. "Okay, where's dad?"

"Out in the garden," Marvin nodded. "Getting us some veggies."

Mark pushed his empty plate away, stood, and walked to the door. "I'll go help him out."

"Okay."

He opened the door, and sunlight immediately blinded him. He blinked a few times until his eyes were used to the harsh light, before starting down the little cobblestone walkway toward the garden.

His father was bent down in the garden, uprooting carrots, beats, and other vegetables. His hands and clothes were caked with dirt. He looked up as Mark approached. "There you are. Heard you making a ruckus last night."

"Yeah," Mark said. "I had a dream."

"Another dream?" His father shook his head. "You becoming a seer or something?"

"I hope not. They have to wear long robes."

"True indeed." His father patted his hands together, crumbling away some of the dirt that was imbedded in his skin. "Well, you can take these back." He motioned to the basket full of fresh veggies. "I'll just finish up here."

Mark picked the basket up. "When's mom coming home?"

"Oh, soon," his father replied, squinting off into the horizon. "You know her. Always busy with something or rather."

Mark nodded and went back to the house. He turned at the sound of approaching hooves. He looked up, and there on the crest of the hill, was a horse, with a rider on its back. The pair stood, frozen, on the hill. Mark couldn't distinguish the rider's features. Without warning, the rider suddenly slumped in the saddle and fell to the ground.

"Romeo!" Mark's father hollered. Immediately, the horse burst into a run, toward him. Mark put down his basket and ran to his father. Romeo snorted and huffed; he was upset. Mark's father grabbed the tether and gave it to Mark. "Take him back, I'll go check on your mom." Mark looked at the motionless figure lying on the hillside. "Is she alright?" he asked worriedly.

His father gave him a shove. "Go put him away and come back!"

Mark ran, leading Romeo to the barn, where he quickly tied the steed to a fence post before running back to rejoin his father. Marvin joined him. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I don't know. Mom's back, but she fell out of the saddle."

The two brothers joined their father on the hill. He was carrying their mother in his arms. Her eyes were closed; her dark hair hung in a loose sheet; her clothes were stained in blood. Was she dead? Mark swayed on his feet, no, no, she can't be dead she cannot be dead...

"Is she dead?" Marvin demanded.

"Move aside," his father ordered gruffly. "Marvin, go in and get some hot water for us. Mark, I need you to open the door."

Mark followed his father into the house. He placed her on the couch. She didn't move. Mark couldn't believe his eyes. "She's not dead." It was a statement, not a question. Because he refused to believe that his one and own mother could be dead.

"No, she's not," his father replied stoically. He looked at the wound. "It's a bite. Oh, no. It's a zombie bite."

Marvin came back into the room, carrying a bucket of warm water. Their father soaked a rag in the water, and pressed it down on the bite.

"Get me some healing herbs," he ordered. Mark sprinted into the kitchen, riffled through some cabinets, came back with the little medicinal basket with all the herbs in it. His father snatched the basket from him, messily upturned the contents onto the floor, and selected a thick grey leaf from the pile of medicines. He gave it back to Mark. "Chew." Mark stuffed the leaf in his mouth and began chewing. It had a bitter, disgusting taste, but he ignored it and just kept chewing. When it was suitably ground up, he spat it back out and returned the mush to his father, who pressed it onto their mother's wound.

Suddenly her eyes snapped open. She looked around, confused and scared. Mark's father grabbed her; "Tessa, it's okay. Tessa, it's me. Can you see me?"

Her eyes focused on him. Her lips moved. Mark couldn't hear what she was saying. His father bent down, put his ear to her mouth. Her lips continued to move. Then she gasped and closed her eyes again.

Cruel fingers tightened around Mark's heart. "Is she dead?"

His father shook his head. "No. Here, hand me a new rag."

Marvin gave it to him. "What did she say?" he asked.

"She said, 'They're invading. Obion's overrun. Get my children away from here.'"

His words hung in the air for several long moments.

"But Obion is the strongest city in the world!" Marvin protested.

"And who's 'they'?" Mark added.

"The monsters," his father replied. "It must be them."

"But that's impossible!" Marvin yelled.

"Don't yell at me young man!" his father shouted back; "Go and get me some clean clothes." He turned to Mark, his eyes were scared. "She's been bit. It's a zombie bite. How long does it usually take for someone to turn after getting bit?"

Mark racked his brain for the answer; truth be told, he was having trouble focusing on anything. "Uh, about two days."

His father made a face. "Then it could already be too late. I'll do my best to treat her; after that, we can only pray."

And so Mark did.


	2. Kadin

The house was quiet. Mark paced restlessly, nervously, muttering quietly to himself under his breath...

His father laid into him: "Knock it off! Show a little backbone, will ya, boy?"

Mark turned on him. "The world is gonna end!" he cried. "If the monsters really have come back and are invading, desolation is inevitable! Just look what happened to Obion."

Marvin, who was sitting in the recliner in the corner, said, "Are we forgetting that mom obviously isn't in ship-shape right now? Has no one stopped to consider that perhaps she's hallucinating? That zombie bite is no doubt messing with her head some."

Their father frowned. "Maybe," was all he said.

Mark sat down, running his hands through his hair again and again in agitation. "I'm scared, man. Are we gonna die? Is it over?"

"Keep your head, son," his father told him.

He sighed in exasperation. "I won't have a head if we stay here much longer. We should go, like mom said. We should get out of here."

"And where," Marvin replied slowly, "do you intend to go?"

"That's right," their father said. "It's not like we can leave the island."

"Why not?" Mark challenged. "We could take a boat and sail out of here."

"For crying out loud, calm down!" his father barked. "We don't even know for sure if anything is wrong! You want us to just up and leave without that kind of confirmation? I'd rather not abandon our home and animals unless I know for certain there's no other choice!"

Mark drummed his feet on the floor. "I can't just sit here anymore. I'm going crazy."

"No, I can see that."

Mark stood. "I'm going to ride down to Kadin and see if they have any news."

"Okay, if it'll make you feel better. Be careful; take some food and weapons."

"Okay."

He went upstairs and got his bag, came back downstairs, filled it with bread, cheese, some other stuff. Then he went back upstairs, opened his chest and got his diamond sword, armor, and anything else he thought he might need.

He said goodbye to his father and brother and headed out. He untethered Romeo, repositioned his saddle, and climbed in. He guided Romeo down the road. The trees closed in on all sides, they were so dense in fact that they almost blocked out the sky.

He was nervous, jumping at every little sound. It was as if in one moment, his sense of security had been dashed on the rocks, and he was left feeling helpless and scared.

Seeing other people, talking with them, would help reassure him, even if the report was true and the monsters had risen from the dead to exact vengeance on the living.

He reached Kadin before sun high. The place was crawling with people. He recognized some people from neighbouring farms. One of them, a bushy-eyed man with a hook instead of a hand, was conversing with a couple of merchants. Mark dismounted, and walked over to the man. Quinn, was his name.

"Quinn," he said. The farmer turned to him, fixed him with a steely blue gaze; "Ah, Marvin, how you doing?"

"Well. And I'm Mark, not Marvin."

"Ah, of course." The man's breath stunk, but he was a nice guy; "Listen 'ere, have you heard all them reports about the monster invasion?"

"I have," Mark said, his heart sinking. So it must be true.

"And can you confirm if them reports are true or not?"

"No, I can't."

Quinn scratched his chin. "Well, neither can nobody in this town. It's a mess, as you can see; everyone's heard the reports. Everyone's scared."

"Me too," Mark said. "So how is the Government planning on retaliating?"

Quinn wrinkled his nose. "Retaliate? No, don't get your hopes up, lad. Obion was the Capital. All our leadership was in there. So they've either run for it, or they're dead. Son, there'll be retaliation, mark my words. But it won't be for a while. They gotta reorganize themselves first."

Mark sullenly digested this information; "And what can you tell me about the monsters?"

"Personally, I don't suspect we're dealing with monsters here," Quinn replied; "There hasn't been a monster army in thousands of years. No, I think someone else is responsible. A _new_ enemy. Someone from beyond the Equator. That's my guess."

Could it be possible? Could enemies from outside their world be the ones responsible? "They must have powerful ships, then, to make it through the Equator."

"I suspect... Sorry son, I got to go. You keep an eye on your folks for me, aye?"

"Sure. Thanks for your help."

Quinn wandered off into the crowd, leaving Mark to consider everything he'd heard. It seemed to ludicrous... that after thousands of years of peace, someone could just come in, and in the span of a day, overthrow their most powerful city.

On the one hand it made sense. They weren't expecting an attack, so they weren't prepared. An attack, quick and decisive, would completely catch them off guard.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn't hear the shouting at first... it was so noisy, what with all the people yammering. But then he snapped awake, and he realized, well and truly, those were screams of fear. Everyone began running, in a frenzied pack, toward him, trampling one another underfoot. Mark ran to get out of their way. He wanted to know what was going on but he knew better than to hang around. He ran back to Romeo. But before he could reach his horse, a hundred voices screamed in alarm. He spun around and saw a big puffy ball with a mouth and eyes, rising up above the houses. The ghastly creature opened its cavernous maw and from it shot a burning fireball. The projectile struck a house. The roof was engulfed in flames.

Terrified, Mark forgot about Romeo and sprinted to find cover. People bustled all around him in an effort to get away. Above the screams and trampling footsteps, Mark heard the sound of arrows being fired, whistling through the air; the soldiers were fighting back!

He hid behind a house, along with a pack of ten or so people. All of them looked frightened. Suddenly, one of them, a man, keeled forward, an arrow stuck out of his back. A skeleton stood at a distance, bow in hand, its jaw twisted in a menial grin as it reloaded.

Mark and the other villagers scrambled behind cover. A woman was shot. Her body fell a couple feet away from Mark. Her eyes looked up at the sky, expressionless.

His heart pounding, Mark peeked above the barrel he was hiding behind. The skeleton was advancing on them, bow strung and ready to fire. Mark knew he couldn't stay here; he'd be killed. But what could he do?

With a cry of alarm, a man jumped out from his hiding spot, and proceeded to attempt to climb the house. The skeleton trained its bow on him. Mark reached up and grabbed the man's calf, and yanked him back down. The arrow thudded into the wall. The man looked at him with an immeasurable sense of gratitude. "Thank you!"

Mark nodded; "We have to kill it, before it kills us," he said.

The man looked around for a moment. There was a loose board sticking out of the house. He grabbed it and began prying it. Mark helped. The board came loose with a crack. The man wielded it like a baton; "I'll crack him upside the head!" he declared, and bolted at the skeleton. The skeleton turned and shot him. But the man didn't stop. He swung that board like a club, connecting it with the skeleton's head. The skull came loose with a pop and rolled to the ground. The now-headless skeleton crumpled. The man turned to Mark, an arrow sticking out of his chest. They held each other's gazes for a moment, before the man collapsed.

Mark began to hyperventilate. He knew he had to run, but he couldn't. He'd lost all strength in his limbs. Instead, he pulled himself into a curled-up ball and just laid there. He couldn't take it, he just couldn't. He could only pray, that he would somehow make it out of this alive, and that it would all be over soon.

He ended up falling asleep, and when he woke up, it was to the sound of voices. Gingerly, he lifted his head and listened. Those weren't normal human voices; they were rough, scratchy. He didn't know who they were, but he didn't want to find out either.

 _I have to get out of here._

Quietly, he pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around. He saw figures in the distance. They were just standing around. Didn't seem human. Better not go that way.

He got to his feet. The bodies of the three people who the skeleton shot were still laying right where they fell. Mark picked his way around them, and proceeded to creep to the edge of the village.

Where was Romeo? He wasn't tied up where he'd left him. Mark quickly scanned the surrounding area, but his horse was nowhere to be found. He held back tears at the thought that he might be dead.

 _No time, no time to look._

He checked to make sure the coast was clear, and then sprinted like mad for the forest. For all he knew, every villager in the town was dead and he was the only one left. He couldn't hang around.

He managed to reach the treeline. He looked back to see if he was being followed. Nope. He saw several skeletons dotted around the landscape. The street was covered in bodies.

Turning away from the grisly sight, Mark ran into the woods and didn't look back.


End file.
